Mom pulls boy from path of sliding van

Dawn and her son Alex were waiting for his school bus on a Brunswick Boulevard sidewalk Feb. 1 when the motorist lost control on the slippery road.

Dawn and Alex were standing beside the shelter at a city bus stop near the corner of Davignon Street at 7:30 a.m. The young mother looked up to see a green minivan heading straight for them.

“I just saw (the minivan) at the last moment,” she told The Chronicle hours after the accident. “I had to pull my son away from the hood of his jacket. I’m glad it was a nice day because had it been a cold day we would have been sitting inside.

“My stomach still gets nauseous thinking about it.”

The westbound vehicle slid sideways, hopped the sidewalk and tore through the glass walls of the bus shelter. Shards of broken glass littered the nearby snow bank and the wobbly skeleton of the shelter was on the verge of collapse.

The woman driving the minivan was not hurt and police on the scene said she would not be charged.

The morning’s light dusting of snow made driving treacherous, the officer said.

Following the accident, Alex, a Sunshine Academy student, boarded his school bus and headed to class.

“He seemed to be in a little bit of shock,” Dawn said, adding she informed his school of the incident. “But he’s a child. They bounce back a little bit faster than we do because we understand the reality of it.

“I’ve cried a lot since then because I think ‘What if we were inside?’”

The damaged bus shelter was removed last week.